Russian Physics Journal (Former Soviet Physics Journal) and its Contribution to the Development of High-Current Pulse Electronics and Electrophysics

Abstract

This article assesses the impact that the journal has had on the research and development in high-current pulse electronics and electrophysics, gas electronics, physics of gas lasers, relativistic microwave electronics, plasma electronics, etc. All these fields of research involve achievements in three areas of science and technology, namely, the creation of high-power nanosecond pulse generators; fundamental studies of nanosecond high-current discharges in gases, which have led to the discovery of the phenomenon of multielectron initiation of discharges, and studies of pulsed vacuum discharges, which have resulted in the discovery of explosive electron emission. The author began his research activities in these areas in 1958 at Tomsk Polytechnic Institute and continued them at the Institute of High Current Electronics of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which was opened in 1977. A number of articles published in the journal were devoted to priority issues such as the studies of nanosecond discharges in gases, in vacuum, and in water; the description of the properties of explosive electron emission; the invention of metal-dielectric cathodes with ferroelectrics, and the proposal of gas compression in devices based on electrically exploded cylindrical conductors.